


all these years

by youmeandem



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Possibly Unrequited Love, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 06:23:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13382016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youmeandem/pseuds/youmeandem
Summary: She’s stunning. She always was, but there’s something different about her. Her hair still looks like she stepped out of a shampoo ad, but it’s a few inches longer than Lena remembers. She looks stronger, not just physically but mentally and emotionally, too. The distant look in her eyes and the tension in her shoulders are gone. And her smile, though it has always been genuine, seems softer now that it comes from happiness, too.or:kara and lena reunite three years after reign is defeated





	all these years

It’s been three years since Lena last saw Kara in person, and seeing her again knocks the air out of her lungs—literally. One moment she’s rushing to get to L-Corp Tower and the next she’s swept off her feet by two strong arms.

Before she has time to process what’s happening she’s back on the ground, and a blue-and-red blur is pulling someone out of a still-moving car heading straight towards where Lena had been walking just seconds ago.

Even though Supergirl has been in National City for a little over five years now, everyone still stops to look and take pictures on their phone as their local superhero saves yet another life. People point and whisper her name, and after Supergirl has safely put the man on a wooden bench across the street she turns to look at the crowd.

No one pays any attention to the burning car wrapped around the lamp post just a couple of feet away from them as they all try to get as close to Supergirl as possible. They all want something from her, but Supergirl politely declines their requests for selfies as she seems to look for something.

Someone.

Lena’s frozen on the pavement. She still feels the pressure of Kara’s arms around her waist, no matter how short they touched her, and in an instant all the feelings come rushing back. Her heart swells in her chest until it feels too large for her body. All these years of trying to get over her, and with just one touch she’s back at square one.

Finally Supergirl’s eyes find her and she cracks a smile. One of those bright, jubilant smiles that always made Lena’s knees go weak. She tries to move, but her body doesn’t want to listen. All it wants is to dumbly stare at Supergirl.

She’s stunning. She always was, but there’s something different about her. Her hair still looks like she stepped out of a shampoo ad, but it’s a few inches longer than Lena remembers. She looks stronger, not just physically but mentally and emotionally, too. The distant look in her eyes and the tension in her shoulders are gone. And her smile, though it has always been genuine, seems softer now that it comes from happiness, too.

For a moment, it looks like Supergirl is going to walk towards her, but then a little girl tugs at her cape and asks for her signature. Kara breaks eye-contact, and just like that Lena regains control over her body.

She slips away through the crowd, unsuccessfully trying to calm her frantic heart.

 

/

 

No matter how much she tries to distract herself for the rest of the day, her mind keeps going back to Kara. She should’ve expected to run into her after moving back to National City, but for some reason she didn’t think it would happen this soon.

It’s nothing, she tells herself. Whatever feelings are making her head spin and her chest ache are just leftovers from before.

Before Sam. Before _Reign_.

So she turns back to signing off on reports for another few minutes, until she inevitably thinks back to the way Kara searched for her in the crowd with that look in her eyes, and she’s distracted again.

She hasn’t been this unproductive in months, and she’s about to just give up and go home when she hears the soft rustling of what can only be a cape, and the sound of boots touching down on concrete.

(Her heart doesn’t leap out of her chest. It doesn’t.)

(It does.)

She takes a deep breath and pretends to be focused on work for another moment, before giving in and turning around in her chair.

Supergirl is standing on her balcony, in all her might and glory. Her cape is fluttering in the wind, and she has her hands on her hips. It’s so reminiscent Lena wants to leap into her arms and never let go.

But they’re different people now. She can’t just expect everything to go back to normal, no matter how much she wants them to.

(Yet, at the same time, she spent all this time working through unresolved feelings and it feels like regression to let it all go to waste.)

It’s a staring contest, each of them on the other side of a window as if to maintain the illusion of distance between them. Eventually, it’s Lena who breaks eye-contact first.

She gets up to open the door, and when she gets onto the balcony, Kara takes a step back to give her space. But she does look at her with inscrutable eyes and a hesitant smile.

“Hey,” Lena says dumbly.

“Hi,” Kara breathes. Her eyes flicker down to her hands as she fumbles with the straps around her thumbs that keep her suit in place. “I, uh, I didn’t know you were back in town.”

Lena swallows. Kara looks so vulnerable right now, despite the suit and the hair and the crest. She looks like Kara. _Her_ Kara. Mumbling, bumbling Kara. The Kara she fell in love with. “I’ve only been back for a week.”

“Right,” Kara nods, clenching her jaw. “How was your… trip? Did you see any elephants?”

Lena can’t help it—she laughs. “It was exhausting, but mostly satisfying. And yes, I did see elephants. Quite a lot of them, actually.”

Kara visibly relaxes at Lena’s laughter, and she finally looks up to meet Lena’s eyes. “You built schools, right? Must’ve been hard work.”

“More or less. I’d been donating to this program for a long time, and even though they don’t usually like to offer volunteers from overseas I had some engineering-related ideas that required me to be on site. And then I stayed for a couple semesters to teach at the University of Nairobi, since I was already there and, well—”

“You didn’t want to come back.”

Lena gives her a soft smile, leaning over the railing to look down at the streets below. Having Kara around helps with her fear of heights. “I wanted to build my own legacy. I love L-Corp, but I didn’t have a hand in making it into what it is today.”

Kara joins her at the railing. “That’s not true. Without you, it would’ve perished. You made it better.”

“I changed something that was already there. There’s a difference.”

Kara glances down at her chest. “I guess I can understand that.”

“Eventually time caught up on me, though. And now I’m back.” Lena turns to look at Kara. With the exception of this morning, this is the closest to each other they’ve been in years, and Lena wonders if being around Kara is always going to feel like this.

Her heart, scarred and stitched up from all the people she’s lost, is still beating. She can feel the steady _thump thump thump_ against her ribs. Without a doubt, Kara can hear it, too. Does she know that Lena can barely remember a time when it didn’t beat for her? That she’s still the only one that can get it racing?

Kara’s lips are pressed in a thin line, her eyes set on something on the horizon. “Things were hard after you left. They were hard before you left, but in a different way. We were all still dealing with the aftermath, and I guess I underestimated how much I’d gotten used to having you around. To being able to lean on you if I needed to.”

Lena lets out a soft sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Kara says, turning to look at Lena. “You lost her, too. We were all just doing what we thought was best. After I recovered, I continued being Supergirl. And you… you built schools in Kenya.”

“I didn’t mean to stop replying to your messages,” Lena says. She wants to say _It’s just that I’ve been in love with you for five years and you never loved me back. I needed the distance to get over you. That’s why I didn’t text back, or return your phone calls. I trusted your support system to pick you up after I left, but I’m my own support system and after Sam I just couldn’t sit around and do nothing._ She wants to say _It didn’t work, though. I’m still in love with you. I think I might always be in love with you._ Instead she says, “Time zones are a bitch.”

Kara chuckles. “Tell me about it.”

“Mon-El?” Lena guesses.

“He went back to the 30th Century with Imra after we defeated Reign,” Kara nods. “We tried to keep in touch, me and the Legion, but our lives are too different. I haven’t heard from them in two years. I assume they’re doing alright. Still saving the galaxy one planet at a time.”

Lena tenses at the mention of Reign, and Kara must’ve noticed because the look in her eyes softens and she frowns. “Sorry. J’onn thought it would be best to just talk about it. No avoiding names or sugarcoating anything. And since he can literally read minds we went with it. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised it actually worked, too.”

“It’s okay,” Lena mumbles, trying to shake the electric current running down her spine every time she’s reminded of everything that happened. It doesn’t really work, not with Kara literally standing next to her, whose entire existence is a reminder of Sam. Of Reign.

(Another reason she had to get away from her, Lena thinks.)

Kara doesn’t seem convinced. The crinkle between her eyebrows deepens and she tilts her head. “Are you still seeing that therapist?”

“Not in a while,” Lena admits. “I was planning on calling her after I got back, but it just kind of slipped my mind with everything else I had to do.”

“That’s good. Talking helps, apparently. Who would’ve thought, right?”

A gust of wind blows the clouds past the moon, and when Kara looks at it the light reflects in her eyes. She’s beautiful.

Lena bites her lip. “How’s Alex?”

“Better,” Kara says, a smile tugging at her lips. “She’s one of the people that took it hardest, I think, especially because it happened so soon after Maggie. Sara helped a lot, though. She took time off of time travel, which is kind of ironic now that I think about it, and spent a couple months helping out around here. I should’ve known there was more going on at that wedding.”

Lena only met Sara Lance once, when she and a few others came from Earth 1 to help with Reign, and even though they hadn’t met under the most ideal circumstances she seemed nice. A little aggressive at times, but her heart was in the right place.

“And, uh—” She takes a deep breath, holding it for three seconds before slowly exhaling. “Ruby?”

“As well as you would expect. She’s still in school, so that’s good. And we tested her for powers at the DEO. I think everyone was a little relieved when it turned out she doesn’t have any.” Kara chuckles softly. “When Alex said she wanted kids I didn’t expect her to adopt a teenager just a couple months later, but I think it’s been good for both of them, especially with Sara popping up every now and then.”

“And you?”

“Me?”

Lena nods.

“Well, you know I blew out my powers. Didn’t get them back for nearly three months. People made up all kinds of stories. Then James got hurt in fight and it kickstarted them back into action, if you can call it that. Been flying around ever since.”

Lena remembers. Even from across the world, news of Supergirl’s return spread like wildfire. Apparently not just the US deals with superpowered heroes in capes.

“And?”

Kara sighs. “Apparently the DEO has some mental health services for field agents. I’m not magically healed, but—you know. Turns out EMDR works on aliens, too. Some days are better than others, of course, but I’m getting there. Lots of my ‘unresolved trauma’ is now resolved trauma.” She makes airquotes with her hands, but her face and tone are serious. “What about you?”

“Some days are better than others,” Lena repeats. She’s not good with words, especially not putting her feelings into words. _Words are empty, it’s actions that count_ has been drilled into her her entire life, and it’s hard getting rid of that mindset. “Losing people you love is never going to be easy.”

“I guess not,” Kara says, the corners of her lips curling up in a sad smile. She looks at Lena. “Did I lose you?”

Lena shakes her head.

“Feels like it sometimes.” Kara reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind Lena’s ear. Her fingertips feel hot against Lena’s skin, and she has to remind herself to keep breathing.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles.

Kara looks at her and, without a warning, wraps her arms around Lena’s waist. On instinct, Lena buries her face in Kara’s neck and closes her eyes, breathing in the scent she’s been craving for years. Kara’s body is soft and warm, and Lena wants nothing more than to freeze time and stay like this forever.

Too soon, Kara starts pulling back, and Lena lets her.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Kara says. “I missed you.”

Lena is never going to fall out of love with her. She tried and failed. No matter how much it hurts to be in love with Kara, she’ll suffer it all because in the end she’s had a taste of the forbidden fruit and nothing else can satisfy her anymore. No one else makes her feel like she’s flying.

“Yeah,” she says with a sigh. “Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> title is from all these years by camila cabello
> 
> thanks to [astrid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFirstDayOfSpring) for proofreading
> 
> if you liked it please leave kudos and/or a comment and/or come find me on twitter @luthvers, tumblr (lenacorporations) or [buy me a coffee](http://ko-fi.com/youmeandem)


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